Microsoft has pulled its Windows 7 discount pricing after apparently overwhelming demand lead to its online store crashing and has continued its EC hissy-fit confirming that their will be no Vista to 7 upgrade option.

Microsoft claim that they sold more copies of Windows 7 in the first eight hours than it did in 17 weeks in 2006 with a simliar offer for Windows Vista.

The blogosphere is already awash with rumours that actually, Microsoft were going to do it all along, to the fan the flames of hype around 7. Hype which hasn’t been seen for a Microsoft OS since Windows 98.

And after pulling IE 8 from the Euro version of 7 following their EC anticompetitive fine, Microsoft have also said that there will be no Vista upgrade option in Europe.

Although Windows 7 will be released in Europe for the price of an upgrade package in the rest of world.

Microsoft’s Leila Martine said: “What we are saying is ‘we don’t care as a consumer if you had Windows Vista or not because we can’t tell that and we don’t want to penalise you for our decision to take IE8 out of the Wndows 7 E version and to not give an upgrade option.”

You can still download the release candidate which will work until late next, and which I have partitioned onto my macbook HD. Aren’t I cool?

I have W7 and Linux on my laptop, and managed to secure a copy at the discounted price 24 hours before they pulled the plug. Only thing is they don’t charge till they ship the OS, so does that mean they might just cancel the order? Time will tell.